


after me, the flood

by Saul



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Many Alternate Universes, Alternate Universe - Pirates, Alternate Universe - Street Urchins, And a Few Other Constants, And a Side of Soulmate, Bad Uncle is Universally Bad, But Life isn't Nice, Deaths Don't Last, F/F, F/M, Jokaste Tries, M/M, Paschal Regrets, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He imagined a world wherein Akielos and Vere had no qualms. A world where Auguste lived. A world where Damianos met him with his head held high. A world where the next day would not bring disaster. A world where his uncle--- well. </p><p>He imagined quite a bit. </p><p>(also known as: the reincarnation AU that hits every branch on the trope tree.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	after me, the flood

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for depictions of gore and implied child abuse. includes spoilers for the entire series.
> 
> started as a fun little drabble, turned into a monster. AUs are just... great. aren't they great. they're pretty great. here are many AUs with a spit-and-tape attempt at connecting them together. please enjoy.

In a kingdom forgotten, through a road well-trodden, a town lay at the edge of a cliff, and a black-haired man caught a black-haired boy red-handed in his barrel of fish. 

At the town’s feet sprawled a port, and across the port trudged immigrants of all size and stature; the town wasn’t large, but it was a good way-point for ships in need of a rest. In consequence, travelers and the vagabonds looking to make their load lighter alike trawled across stone and through market.

The black-haired man was a brute known locally for his stringent prices on poor cuts of fish as well as his tendency to finish bar fights. The black-haired boy was known by none, a stow-away orphan made street orphan five merchant ships hence.

“Should I call the guards, you thieving rat? Huh?”

The boy struggled, fingers digging into the other’s tight grip on his upper arm. Finding him lacking in listening skill, the man gave him a shake, pulling him around the stall.

“Lookin’ like you crawled out the sea on your belly - bet you’re _diseased_ , look at you -”

Potential customers continued past. A few made eye contact with either man or boy, and hurried along faster for it; none who knew him fancied the attention of Govart.

“Look a man in his eye when he’s speakin’ to you! Fuckin’ bilge rat, no manners.”

The guards found him lacking in manners as well. With no money to spare from thread-bare urchin pockets, the fish-seller had no compensation for his wasted time in corralling pint-sized thieves. For a port town, the guardhouse during the day hosted two clerks and one leather-clad guardsman with a rattling ring of keys. One clerk and the guard mused on simply chucking the boy back out; the other clerk, however, scratched his beard, shrugged one bored shoulder, and suggested they foster the tiny wrech to an out-going captain in need of a cabin boy. Yes, yes, of course, the child wasn’t trained, had to be nearing the unsuitable age of puberty, and he had an awful accent, but wasn’t there a new merchant passing through town with a motley crew and little to spend, let alone lose?

Thus the boy found himself indebted to the green-gilled captain of _The Sunburst_ , a ship which looked about as respectable as the orphan felt. 

The captain was also the merchant, it turned out - a lean, blond-haired youth with startling blue eyes and clothing fit for a man far above anyone who should talk to a scrawny, desperately hungry, unwashed boy.

Still: the blond peered down at him, head tilted to the side, and with a voice as sharp as broken glass, asked him, “What’s your name, boy?”

Briefly, a thought: of a dark hold and too many days at sea, of swimming to shore under the moon and rubbing blue toes back to life, of wishing for a father that had bid him to leave, to flee, to find freedom and safety in the tide of war. Another thought: of a different captain, who had found him moments before they docked, and tossed him overboard in hopes he couldn’t swim.

If this captain thought he would toss him overboard and hope he couldn’t swim--

“Damen.” His mouth said, before his mind could catch up. It wasn’t his full name, but it was the one people of these parts didn’t mangle so badly.

“Damen.” The blond’s voice was off, for just a moment. As if he’d remembered he left his trousers in the washing tub, Damen thought, but couldn’t remember where the washing tub went, which was not a usual occurrence but was known to happen. Then the blue-eyed merchant blinked, and the moment passed. His new frown meant he didn’t have to tell Damen that he’d spoken with the clerk about why, exactly, an orphan was up for cabin boy. “Will you be as quick with your hands for an honest living?”

The boy’s mouth turned down and his nose scrunched up.

He imagined jumping ship when the captain’s back turned and swimming back to shore. But then he also imagined getting caught again while digging disgusting fish out of slimy barrels, hunched his shoulders, and nodded.

The captain’s mouth hinted at a smile without commitment. Damen had a feeling it rarely managed it. “I hope you don’t make promises lightly.”

“I don’t,” Damen’s mouth said, again without his brain’s consent (it wasn’t a new problem, insofar as his mother had ever said). His gut knew he had to prove that to this man, though what was left of his childish pride chafed at why.

Pushing himself to his feet, the richly dressed captain of the shabby ship hummed dismissively ( _but, Damen thought, there was a part of the man that believed him_ ). “We’ll see. Speak to Jord, our first mate, and he’ll sort you where you should be. My name is Laurent Arles. Welcome to _The Sunburst._ ”

 

 

All in all, a peaceful beginning for a long life.

 

 

It wasn’t always so simple.

 

 

In another life, they were born within the same year and the same kingdom, though - as with most - it was again a kingdom forgotten by time. The land struck them as familiar: they were masters of it, traveled from court to summer mansions to balls to theater houses with comfort and ease. In this life, they didn’t know the land they walked, they had walked before, nor that it had once been called Akielos and Vere. It was, to them, home.

In this life, they knew of each other.

In this life, Laurent was a beloved painter - the high court’s best, his work the centerpiece of any room. Known for his detail, exacting standards and subtle passion, he was never in want for work. He was often in want for good apprentices, but that was, any giggling lady or chortling lord would say, was due to his peculiar painting habits, not his talent. Rumor had it the man demanded his colors mixed with eggs laid by the finest hens; it thusly fell to his poor apprentices to tend the coop themselves, which was not suitable work for any aspiring aristocrat’s son. 

Anyone who was anyone had a painting by Laurent. 

“Nasty beasts though they are, I’d tend a thousand hens if it meant I could paint half as well as he. What do you think, Daphne?”

Daphne, a middling noble when one looked into it, hummed noncommittally under her breath. She would prefer to return to her falconry and prepare for the upcoming hunting games, not sit for a portrait. 

But her mother insisted, and so she did. 

Laurent’s brush stilled several times while he reminded her to sit still with the patience of a man who worked with children and restless old aristocrats alike. 

To her surprise, he had a sense of humor. To his surprise, he found her clever.

They ate lunches and dinners together in between his working and her sitting. His eyes caught on her mouth more than was professional. She found herself sitting nearly thigh-to-thigh with him, far more than was polite. The summer drew on, and they drew closer, but not close enough. 

After, his mother thanked him profusely while Daphne admitted his paintings were very fine indeed. They packed their wagon and returned to their lodge in the south. The painting would be the talk of the town and handed down generation after generation. It was Laurent’s last great work, some said; his passion dimmed with each ensuing year until his quiet, natural death.

Daphne found a husband and none could say she was not loyal, though her husband thought her incredibly vain. Servants found her gazing at her prized portrait more nights than not.

In this life, they knew of each other, and nothing more.

 

 

Those lives were the ones Damianos despised the most, when he recalled the past at all. The ones where there was a chance to rediscover each other, to live a full life, but they squandered it. 

The mind was not meant to remember what had been a dozen times over; the heart found it difficult to let go, though it ached all the same. There came times where either mind or heart missed death’s cue, and what memories or scars they made stretched between one body to the next.

 

 

World and time as vast as it was, they met in a variety of ways. On the battlefield, between one sword’s stroke and another; in a caravan, both settlers looking for new land amidst people who would become their shared family; in the dirty operating room, as patient and surgeon, with leather between the teeth and a saw set to the other’s elbow.

In the flashes of recognition behind blue and black eyes, in the collision of two forces of nature, spread thin and far across years too numerous to count.

 

 

Here stretched not a kingdom but a lonely path through the wilderness. In this life, Damen found himself trained in a new magic-- “A new _science,_ ” Laurent always corrected him, eyes lowered demurely to whatever populace they found themselves in front of-- by the name of alchemy. Laurent was his apprentice, an aspiring alchemist with ambition, though they were no more than two years apart from each other, and Damen wasn’t sure what made Laurent think his rickety wagon was the way to the top.

Not that Laurent was anywhere close to up front about his motives for learning alchemy, but Damen didn’t need to ask to know the blond planned on weaseling his way back to-- or, no, not in this life, not _back to_ , simply _into_ \-- the royal court of a kingdom beyond the wilderness. Whatever Laurent’s internal reasoning - and they had a friendship, Damen would say, slow going though it was, assumptions about the depth of their relationship tricking him into missteps and Laurent prickly as ever - gratitude and melancholy filled Damen in equal turns.

The wagon rolled on, village to village, their wares clinking in glass bottles, Damen’s two old oxen sedate and indifferent. Laurent rode next to his master with a leather-bound book open in his lap, reading while he could in the sun’s light.

“We need more lead casings.” The blond noted in a voice pretending to be distracted. “A shame we had to leave Madame Vannes before completing our transaction.” _And whose fault is that?_ demanded his lofty tone. Damen resisted the urge to step on his foot.

He didn’t bother holding back a sigh, eyes kept forward on his oxen. “She was trying to get me in bed with her cousin.” 

“He was preferable to her brother.”

“I didn’t want to bed her cousin or her brother. And she was being very insistent. Very impolite. She should know that’s bad for business.”

“Hm.” Laurent hummed, another page in the old book turned. Damen sighed again and leaned forward on his elbows, throat working around a sudden knot.

Madame Vannes. She hadn’t changed much, either. 

Lead casings came months after their original deal of a partnership, however. Outside a lively tavern in a wild village, they met when they quite literally ran into each other. 

“Laurent?” Had been Damen’s winded gasp, a hand snapping out to clasp the slimmer man on the shoulder. 

Twenty-eight years etched into this body, though his mind recalled three-four- _five_ life times and his heart ached, had such a terrible ache, from the very first moment he was old enough to recognize despair. It was the first time he knew he had memories to know: Akielos and Vere and worlds that didn’t exist outside tales of the past, stories that at first amused his relatives and then drew looks of concern, a change occurring too early and too mature in his speaking. Alchemy promised a gateway into the natural world’s secrets; he had turned to it as soon as he could, racing away from what seemed like a foreign land but what was supposed to be his family’s farm. The first familiar face from dreams and illusions was, _of course_ , the one he remembered most, a hole in his chest he hadn’t known about filling at last: Laurent.

Lantern light softened high cheekbones but not his tone. The blond responded with narrowed eyes and barely concealed distaste for the stench of alcohol on his breath, and Damen’s old heart broke anew, as though a knife cut his tendons and he could stand no more. 

“How do you know my name?”

 

 

“You would think that.” Laurent said, when death forgot to clean their slates and they found each other and they had _time_. “I prefer life taking its course without undue waiting.”

 _Time_ meant the two of them meeting in a prison cell, convicted for fraud, treason and regicide, because some events had a way of reappearing in twists of ironic fate. Damen felt old enough to find it bitterly amusing. He also felt old enough, hands in shackles and heart reeling over recognition in blue eyes, to bark out a laugh at Laurent’s words. The blond ruffled at being laughed at for all of two seconds, but then his face broke into the smile of someone finding companionship after too long alone.

Together, they made plans to escape. Together, they didn’t think they could once more be apart, though Damen’s heart knew of a time when he remembered and Laurent did not, and Laurent’s mind warned him of caution.

 _This must be it,_ Laurent mouthed to him on the way to the gallows. _This correction for years past._

 _I’ll find you_ , Damen returned, viciously shrugging off a guard’s hand as they led the blond to the platform. _I’ll find you again._

In that life, their crimes were true, and they hung for them before they remembered how to breathe.

 

 

It wasn’t always so simple.

 

 

It was all it could be.

 

 

"Theodore must be have been your descendant."

"Theodore?"

Arms slid around his waist, fingers dipping under his trousers’ waistline. "You never heard the tale of Akielos-Vere's fall?"

\-- A low groan, but not necessarily the good sort. "I made it a point not to look into it." And, "now? Really? You want to discuss this now?"

"The _nuances_ are lost-- a pity, we were too busy being farmers--”

“When? The time I found you in a well?”

“-- But the broad timeline remains the same."

A forehead presses against broad shoulders. For the first time in decades, Damen resists shrugging his lover off. A knot formed in his throat; his words came as if from far away, as hollowed out as when golden chains first clasped around his wrists and his slave’s blood cooled at his feet. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

 

 

“The Queen witnessed it with her own two eyes, Laurent.”

“The Queen wouldn’t know a pony from a dog if she wasn’t told so by her advisors.”

“Be that as it may, she swears she saw one. I would _also_ like to point out that it’s a big bounty to offer for a wild goose chase.”

Another pause.

Damen grinned. Laurent rolled his eyes.

“In that case, my dear Damen,” and their hearts knew what their minds didn’t, Damen’s horse hot on the heels of Laurent’s silver mare, childhood friends to middle-aged hunters, inseparable and unbearable to all, including each other, “shall we find ourselves a unicorn?”

 

 

Memory came at the beginning, or the middle, or not at all. One had to be careful to note it did not, _would not_ , arrive at the end. Perhaps that was mercy.

The town curled around a road like a lazy cat in the sun. It stretched across Ver-Tan’s plains, far enough from the forests beyond Vask’s border to avoid - most - raiders, and small enough to avoid - most - of Patras’s diplomatic maneuvers. It boasted a run-down inn with piss for ale, a town council of three distantly related women, a defense force of bad-tempered, territorial farmers, and a surprisingly good bakery. 

Wild horses frequented its outskirts, which - aside from incredible pastries - eventually added _a very fine stable with a highly skilled stable-master_ to the Vaskan town’s repertoire.

Old Francine sold the property in order to follow her daughter to the capital. The inn buzzed with theories over what an outsider might decide to do with a broken barn and skewed fences; most agreed the best thing to be done was raze the barn and rent out the land, a process Old Francine and her daughter had been too impatient for. A shame, really, the councils bemoaned; Old Francine had the greenest thumb. The town would miss her strawberries and sweet corn.

The barn didn’t burn. It instead, almost before nosy neighbors smiled their way into the new-comer’s front door finished delivering their house-warming gifts, grew: the new owner turned it into a respectable piece of property. Where she found the funds, no one could say - she spoke to hardly anyone, which in turn allowed rumors to run wild across the town. Nevertheless, of whom she did speak with, well -- that made for a tale to follow in and of itself. For key example, she convinced Jokaste the blacksmith and leatherworker to cook up fancy, foreign-looking tack; she took these elaborately knotted bridles and saddle-bags and traveled west to the nearest trading port; she returned, richer than ever, in riding leathers better suited for a princess than a stranger invested in a middle of nowhere town. 

Husbands complained of her arrogance and haughty, city-slicker dialect. Women noted her refusal to adhere to any social pleasantry, whether sport or chit-chat, and turned up their noses. _Besides_ , they thought, derisive, _she’s all skin and bones. She can’t make it without Jokaste’s help._ All didn’t hesitate a second to speculate on what brought such a royal oddity to their little town.

Indifferent to the new-comer, Paschal the baker abstained from any commentary. Every three days, she bought two loaves of warm bread and one apple turnover. The baker supposed she spoke oddly, but her money was good, _which is more than could be said about your husband, Loyse. Honest to goodness, let him out to dry once in awhile_.

(Of those few who had left the town before, none had ventured to the region once known as Vere. If they had, they would surely have recognized the echoes of old, elaborate fashion in the new-comer’s designs).

The year was unusually hot. The crops yielded less than they should have, and, as was wont to happen to small towns: raiders swept in search of food and coin.

It wasn’t disastrous, but it hit the town hard. It would have been much worse, Jokaste emphasized in front of the two remaining councilwoman, if the new-comer hadn’t rode in on the most beautiful roan mare and displayed an excellence in the saddle that went beyond even the Queen’s guard. She repelled the raiders from Jokaste’s shop with nary a missing hammer, which allowed for quick repair-work on any broken wagons and homes.

 _I broke the mare myself_ , the new-comer, Lauren, answered when asked, neatly avoiding anything about her origins, as usual, _and I’ve found my stable has room for a dozen more._

Although few from the town could afford a horse, Lauren proved to be an excellent instructor and taught younger girls for the simple price of the child aiding in maintaining the barn and horses. 

Strangest of all, however, was that the run-down inn began to find itself without vacancy. People enjoyed Jokaste’s new designs, the townspeople were baffled to hear: the elaborate needle-worth and lacing on the bridles became something of a fad. Consequently, the town’s economy boomed. Lauren’s stables began to empty as merchants and mercenaries found her horses exquisite, and word spread even further of a town which was no less than a diamond hidden in the rough. By the time a merchant named Charls VII boasted of the town’s reputation in his circles, the road that snaked through the plains and through the houses became well-worn.

Over a counter-top which struggled more and more to stay adequately filled, Paschal leveled an exasperated look at a well-dressed Lauren. The no-longer-new-comer raised one blond eyebrow back.

 

 

Lauren began to instruct not only children, but budding and seasoned mercenaries. She gathered permanent stable-hands, expanded her pastures, and even built a second barn. Jokaste remained her primary leatherworker. She found their tastes agreed with one another: elaborate, detailed, and flashy. It was very Veretian, Lauren thought. Not that she had any clue where Vere was. It didn’t seem real.

Jokaste had a preference for the new tavern that Lauren lacked, but occasionally, she allowed herself to be convinced to go. The nights blurred together, she thought. The days weren’t much better, but the nights were especially slow and mind-numbing. People thought she enjoyed her success (if they realized it was her success) in an egotist’s manner; that she wrapped narcissism about her like a cloak and had no need for close company of anyone else. Perhaps it was true. Lauren didn’t pay the idea much heed. Paying attention to most people was simply-- exhausting. It had been the entire reason she’d up-rooted from Skarva and came to this no-name town.

“We don’t take Patras coin here.” Growled the bartender, not two arm’s lengths from Lauren’s distracted form. She continued to ignore the typical exchange, or tried to. The customer - a member of some fighting faction, given the man’s boots, oddly knotted belt and sword - demanded the bartender change his mind. Fists raised, the red-faced man practically hopped the bar. Lauren wisely shifted her mug away from a wildly gesturing arm.

Another woman appeared just before the bartender called for security with an air of weary composure. Her black hair fell in long curls, her eyelashes thick and lips full. Her belt sported more knots, but she looked much less likely to draw her sword; this opinion Lauren formed as she snagged her errant companion, admonishing the man, Makedon, and smoothing relations with the bartender in one swift breath. Her accent placed her from Vask’s southern mountains. She was quite good at apologizing for the ruckus without lowering her own station. 

Lauren turned her eyes back to her mug. Soon she dug out two copper coins for the drink, and stood to leave.

“Oh, no! You can’t go yet!” Oh, _just grand_ \-- “ _Lauren._ ”

“Lauren?” The black-haired mercenary asked, a murmur she hardly caught over the tavern’s din. Jokaste touched light but commanding fingers onto her arm. She shook her off. The black-haired woman took to her other side, dark eyes imploring. Lauren eyed her unhappily, already tired. “The famous stablemaster?”

She thought of lying. With Jokaste right there, she wouldn’t get away with it. “Yes.”

“We came from Hatve to meet with you.” A village north of the southern border, which explained the issue of coin. Jokaste smiled - the woman smiled back with a corner of her mouth, her pleasure at having found her target open and obvious. Her eyes lingered a second too long on Jokaste, Lauren noted, but once redirected her way, the gaze didn’t falter again. “I need a new horse. A sturdy mare, smart and steadfast. They say you have the best in all of Ver-Tan.”

“I have the best in all of Vask.” A pounding settled behind her eyes the likes of which she never before felt; it made her words rougher. She barely restrained herself from shaking the confused, coal-hot thoughts from her head, and side-stepped from her two road blocks. “But this is no place to do business. Come to my stable during the day, and maybe you’ll find a mare to your liking.”

 _If you can afford it_ , she thought, but didn’t say. Bad business.

She said, “Good night,” and, “Yes, Jokaste, I’m afraid I must,” and, “The pleasure is mine, Daphne, I’m sure,” and did _not_ run for the door.

 

 

The mercenary found a mare that suited her, and had the funds to afford it.

“You have men in your troop?” Lauren commented idly as she tested the woman’s coin. In her periphery, she saw Daphne’s shoulders straighten. “It’s no place of mine to judge your business, just as I ask you do not judge mine.”

“They’re honorable men.” Eyebrows climbed at that, though true to her word, judgement on what qualities made a mercenary remained behind sealed lips. This time, Daphne winced with her smile, something sheepish in her eyes. It was not the look of a veteran fighter. Lauren thought she might like it on the woman, if her head would stop pounding so. 

Still, she managed to murmur, voice dropped lower, “Honor does you well in your line of work?”

She realized she did not care for the sheepishness nearly as much as the conviction that bloomed behind dark eyes. “More than you could possibly know.”

 

 

The ache in her head transformed into sleepless nights and nauseating impulses. She woke more than she slept, legs tangled in her sheets, gooseflesh along her arms, everything under her skin feeling alien and too warm. She caught herself thinking she should cut her braid, or that her hips were too wide, or that her balance was off. Her teaching and riding suffered. She wanted to leave town. She wanted to become a mercenary, or find a mercenary, or follow a _certain_ mercenary. She did not know what to do. The mercenary was gone, the mare and so-called honorable men with her. 

She found herself in the bakery, though the sweet smell made her teeth hurt and stomach roil. Paschal took one look at her drawn face and bid her to take a seat and wait until the customers thinned, which turned out to be late afternoon.

“I’m no physician,” he said, once she had listed her physical grievances and looked at him expectantly. The reply raked claws down her back; she stood, movements tight and controlled, left, and threw up water and bile into the bushes behind Loyse’s vegetable garden.

 

 

It didn’t always happen. Mortality made itself known before long, even if it was a pale imitation of what it was supposed to be. The notion didn’t help when memories of deaths ultimately thorough and ultimately escaped poured in. Mercifully, death blurred the ends. An axe’s bite into his neck, the slow choking hands of age, the fuzzy heat of disease - these thoughts, Lauren summoned with difficulty. Death was elusive.

 _Life_ , however, could be seen with such clarity as to blind.

Both obscured themselves in their own ways, but life was so much more painful.

 

 

Fifteen years after she had left her family in Skarva, she almost packed her bags to return. She almost bought parchment from the newly instated mail courier’s office and wrote a missive.

It wasn’t often Auguste lived past his teenaged years.

 

 

_What if he’s dead now? Fifteen years. Worse has happened in eleven._

 

 

Better the uncertainty. 

Her grandmother, if she recalled correctly ( _she did_ ), died during her second child’s birth. The child perished with her.

 

 

“You were right. You have the best in all of Vask,” the black-haired mercenary comments on her return, swinging down from the white mare with a quiet grin and, Lauren noted, more knots on her belt.

Something in the other’s face didn’t fit. The awkwardness made her movements jerky where there had always been - and always would be, whether or not Daphne knew it - grace. 

The stablemaster took a moment to concentrate on her breathing, a trick she recalled from a louder, wilder time.

She licked her lips and said, “I know.”

The once-and-always king of Akielos eyed her. But it wasn’t her acting oddly-- no, no, it was- her, it was Daphne. She was fine. 

“Do you still teach?”

The question startled her, though she knew she gave no outward sign. And yet, Daphne’s brow furrowed deeper.

“I do.” How had she--? Well, it was hard to miss any gossip in this town. Again, she felt the need to leave. But she had worked so hard to build what she had, small though it was (compared to a kingdom). “Are you interested?”

A pause. There was no reason for her to pause. And yet.

“Yes.” Quieter, and for the first time - heart thumping, the traitor - Lauren wondered what Daphne knew. “I would like that very much.”

 

 

Daphne was, of course, a quick study. She stayed in town for a month, the majority of which she spent in Lauren’s (distant, reserved, untrusting, she was self-aware enough now to know she acted so unconsciously) company. 

One summer day, the insects taking up the bird’s background noise in the midst of mid-day heat, they found themselves wading through a creek. Stones slipped and shifted under heavy hooves, their pace languid under sunshine slivers and rustling leaves. They happen upon a moss-covered cave; they dismount; they speak little, and move as if they had known each other for centuries.

The usual pleasantries mercifully remain absent. _You’ve done great - a student is only as good as the teacher - the student will surpass her teacher_ \-- one hundred and one words lost to companionable silence. Yes, it suited them fine. They tie their horses to separate trees and break.

Daphne detailed her group’s latest expedition with Charles VII’s son. They had suffered an ambush in the eastern forests- Pallas (of whom was not as well cared for in this life) had bruised his ribs something awful and took to the wagon for the trip’s remainder-- and, apparently, Daphne had goaded half the raiding party into following her across a chasm. Or, well, they attempted to. It was a miracle she hadn’t lost her horse or her life, she said with the look of someone nonetheless horribly self-satisfied.

Lauren remarked it wasn’t too surprising, which netted her a tighter smile. It didn’t make sense. She filed it away in her mind, and changed her thoughts to competitions and games of chicken.

By the cave’s mouth, side-by-side with Daphne, Lauren mentioned she used to race against her brother (but she didn’t, not in this life where Auguste had never sat upon a horse, let alone played at being bested). 

Daphne’s eyes don’t stop straying to watch her mouth. She notices that.

 

 

She didn’t immediately notice when her companion grew quiet and cautious. To be fair, she hadn’t found it possible to be wary around the other.

“Do you hear that?” 

The babbling creek, the subdued shuffle of horses stretching their necks to grasp near-by underbrush, and not a leaf or twig out of place. She casts a side-long look at Daphne; the woman’s hands clasp together, fingers tight around whitened knuckles. Never very good at hiding what she - or he - was thinking, this Daphne.

Flippantly, she replies.

“I hear nothing.”

“It’s the sound of bells.”

 

 

It wasn’t. 

Lauren’s heart stopped all the same.

 

 

"We never found that unicorn."

"I remember that! The Queen was disappointed in all of us." A grin, not in the least bit subdued. "Oh. Something else I always wanted to say. Or, well, wanted to remember to say. You were an excellent alchemist."

"And you, an excellent captain." ... "Pirate captain, I suppose. I recall manning a pirate ship by the end."

As if seeking reassurance her memory was not faulty - without hesitation, Daphne added the thought that brought a smile to her face.

"Your uncle had your ship blacklisted at every royal port after the incident with Guion’s gold; you dedicated time to sinking his ships in retribution.”

It led to Laurent’s passing in his late thirties by way of a lucky sword-swing from a terrified youth. In that sea-faring life - unknowing and full to the brim with purpose and direction - the death had been valiant and not forsaken. His crew, led by his once cabin boy, now grown captain, razed his uncle’s last storehouse to the ground before the authorities caught up with them.

Like this, they grew old before they knew it.

 

 

Objectively, he knew he lived a decent life, a good life, a long life. Too long, he thinks. The weight of the day dragged him to where he lay, impotent and so tired, tended in his twilight hours by sympathetic nurses who do their best to ease his passing. As far as he can tell, they are merciful. They lead him back from the doorway when he strays, his heart telling him to search, to search, before it was too late.

He had been too long, he thinks. He’d grown restless. Impatient. His family wouldn’t remember him - as they shouldn’t, when he had spent so many years away roving the world in search of an answer to a question he couldn’t articulate.

Surrounding him are a dozen other relics from times long past. Next to him lay another man, blond and feeble. His children visit -- and then their children, two boys with the same golden hair as their grandfather.

Damen does his best to afford the man whatever privacy he can. But one of the boys - the younger, no older than a whelp, his eyes too large in a round face - ducks his brother’s arm to take Damen’s veined hand. Liver-spots stand stark against pale youth.

For the first time in his long, slow life, he thinks he could enjoy where he is. 

“Damianos,” the boy said, this boy with magnificent blue eyes, calling a name that wasn’t his, “this isn’t the end.” _It can’t be the end_ , the words said. Damen’s heart understood beyond a doubt. “I promise I’ll find you. I promise, I _promise_ , I’ll find you.”

His mind must be straying - it feels it, thoughts scattered and light, the air in his lungs buoyant even as it whistles from his throat. 

What an odd thing to tell a dying man. He wanted to tell the boy not to waste his youth. He thought he should ask for his name, but he found he already knew it: in the quirk of a lip and the shadow gathered between two pinched eyebrows.

What an odd boy.

 _Never wait. Live well_ , Damen thought, and closed his eyes.

 

 

“I like this best,” she said, straw in her wild hair and boots coated in mud.

“This,” the blond replied, hand laid flat in the middle of the other’s chest and shoving, once, her eyes distracted, “cannot last.”

She fell with a barked laugh, snagged a slim shoulder and pulled her companion with her into sacks of sand. The other hid her smile, but when blue focused on black, her attention settled wholly.

“Why not? Really, we have forever.”

 

 

They grew old together, two old coots with no husbands and no children, adopted or otherwise. Whatever their legacy was to be, only a smattering of stablehands and long-grown students would tell it. The baker’s daughter forgot the look of quiet happiness on her father’s face when a blond and a black-haired woman played chess outside the shop’s door. 

In the next life, would either of them be able to find what they had poured their hearts and years into? Would it be as lost as Ios or Arles, eroded into an imitation of what their minds remembered to shine brightly?

“Nikandros passed a fortnight ago.” Commented Lauren - Laurent - the golden haired once-and-always-King, crisp parchment clasped in bony, shaking hands. “The courier’s message arrived this noon.”

Daphne sat up in her chair, fingers curling around her knee. “A natural death?”

Lauren nodded.

“He was… Nickolas, wasn’t he.” Quietly, the air weighing her words. “In this life.”

“And quite a life he had. He is survived by _far_ too many children.”

“He served me for only four seasons. I was invited to his wedding.” Eyes lidded, a sigh gusted out of leather lungs as Daphne reclined once again. “Years ago. Why didn’t we go?”

There were Nikandros the clerk, and Nikandros the farmer, and Nicole the naval officer, and Nickolas the married man, and while he could never not follow the recurring faces from one life to the next, familiarity came - _will you ever forgive me for leaving your best suit in the pig’s pen?_ \- with a price - _Damen, I own no pigs. Are you sure you’re well?_ Memories made, memories returned, and people went.

Extinguishing the oil lantern, the parchment left to curl in chill night air, they retired into the dark.

Old age and a long, kind life softened once brutal edges. That was not to say the sharp corners disappeared. Neither breathed a word, but by now - oh, by now - fingers laced together and the soft press of lips against Daphne’s inner wrist communicated _fear_ loud as a scream.

This was the life Damianos learned to fear peace.

 

 

"What's the first world you remember?"

"What a cruel thing to ask."

And yet, not long after, whispered into his ear like a secret worth keeping:

"I remember being kings."

 

 

Strong wooden pillars, thick as the trees they had been cut from-- a lattice work of hand-carved panels and plaques boasted the hall’s enduring history in courageous battles and animalistic triumphs, flickering torches and lanterns casting warm yellow light across long tables and stout mugs of mead. The world was a harsh one, their small but sprawling city situated along a rocky coast, the scraggly rocks reaching near to their doorstep. Inside such a great hall, a celebration commenced: a roasted pig laid half-devoured, its belly and ribs split like a blossoming flower; though the wind rattled the windows, with walls well built, no patron felt the bite of cold. In short, alcohol flowed readily, and spirits remained high well into the evening. A raid accomplished and foreign tributaries arriving on time with gifts of plenty -- it was a night to remember.

At the high table, the Chieftain and his Lady lounged. Arm resting along his Lady’s shoulders, Damen - skin darkened by sun and roughened by salt - hoisted his mug with a loose smile at a retainer’s toast, everything in him languid and relaxed with the feast’s smooth proceedings. At his side, Jokaste hid a grin behind her elegant hand; Damen tore his eyes from her to refocus on the retainer, who had somehow managed to misjudge his seat’s location and taken a tumble to the side. The hall erupted in laughter, the man helped to his feet by the much more stable Patrik.

A young boy with hair the color of his father’s appeared as if from thin air, tugging at his Lady’s sleeve. “Mama! Ketil took my cup and won’t give it back.”

“Not now, darling,” Jokaste murmured, though she cradled the boy to her side all the same. She raised one slim eyebrow at Damen not too long after, however, which was about when he realized he had the most ridiculous grin on his face at the sight of the two of them.

“Chieftain!” Fortunately for their child’s growing intolerance of ‘embarrassing things my parents do,’ attention from all parts of the hall turned toward a familiar figure dragging an unfamiliar, mud-streaked creature into the hall’s heart. With a sinking heart that he tried valiantly to reason away, Damen recognized his elder brother.

The humiliation of being placed second had not treated Kastor well, though it had taken years of trickery and steadfast conviction of his brother’s ill intent from his wife to convince him that Kastor did not mean well. A man more interested in stories than swordwork, Damen thought it obvious why their father would not place him at the head of their people: he had no stomach for valor. He had no head for leadership.

Jokaste habitually bid him to cast his brother from their halls once and for all, but Damen had listened to his mother as a child, and knew a man did not throw his kin to wolves without first inviting the beasts into his own home. 

With a yearning look toward his mug, Damen pushed himself to his feet in reluctant greeting. “Yes, brother? What could possibly be so dire to interrupt our celebration?”

“I caught this slave cutting the masts from our ships. Surely, _that_ deserves your attention.” 

Sometimes, Kastor made his mother’s warning difficult to remember.

Damen looked down upon the soaked, pitiful creature, which - with difficulty - resolved itself into the shape of a slender man with head bowed, bony elbows drawn as close to his body as his rope-tied hands allowed, his unimpressive weight shifted on bent knees. It seemed incredible he was not shaking like a leaf. Wrought iron clasped his wrists, the mark of a bound man. Not a practice he found palatable or allowed within his domain-- a bound man was no more loyal than a bought man-- but there were foreigners in their midst. The slave would belong to one of them.

Unconsciously, his hand found his right wrist, thumb pressed deep into the groove.

A slave had nothing he could see to gain from stalling a battalion at rest. His master, perhaps, but Damen didn’t recognize the slave through the mud and dirtied hair.

“Let me see his face.”

Kastor reached to comply, but not fast enough: the slave looked up of his own volition first, and from the depths of his soul, the thought rose: _I know those eyes._

A cascade. A field flooded, the side of a mountain loosened and falling. 

His next thought: _oh, gods._

Blue recognized him atop his red wood throne. Laurent had known of him. Of course he did. Damen’s reputation proceeded him, for any who lived near enough to waters to understand the price of respect. Laurent had sought him out.

“Damen?” Jokaste murmured, but he could not see the concern spreading across her face. He heard only the blood in his ears and Laurent’s voice, accented by a region that hadn’t existed for close to a millennium, if not longer.

“Humbly,” a lie that only blue eyes told, knowing and unseen to all but him, “I ask your patience and understanding. It was not I.”

No honored title attached. A slave’s word against a Chieftain’s brother. How bold. How crass. The laugh that bubbled from his chest had to be smothered, his back hitting his wooden throne. Mercifully, no foreigner came forward as the slave’s master - he was not entirely sure what he would do, though he knew it wouldn’t be kind. Laurent and he had their roles in this world, but there were things the deepest parts of him could not shake free of. Evidently.

Kastor readied his protest, Damen saw, but he--- he did not care. He fought a smile and asked, already knowing the answer.

“Then who?” _Slave_ did not make it past his tongue. Heavy with irony, the word seeped across his thoughts and rotted. Jokaste placed her hand on his arm. He could not look at her without ice spearing his heart. He found he could look nowhere except forward.

Laurent hardly blinked. That is to say, he hesitated only for Damen’s notice. “The man who believes he can make a scapegoat of me.”

The hall became a roar of indignation and disgust in even turns. It would not be a trial unless Damen allowed it-- a slave, let alone a foreigner’s dog ( _he tasted copper_ ), held no sway.

Before his mind could catch up, before his thoughts came close to rectifying what he had known and what he _knew_ , his mouth said, “Your evidence?”

Laurent smiled.

 

 

"Theodore," between gasps, the words almost lost behind rushing blood, “allowed his daughters to marry whom they loved.”

The flash of teeth to match the glint in his eye. Though his companion hadn’t lost his taste for digging until he found blood, Damen found his patience for this particular horse-beating grew ever thinner. 

"Enough, Laurent. ”

 

 

“Their husbands did what their breed does best: conquer.”

Annoyance boiled over, grip tightened to bruise. His voice snapped. “That isn't the whole story."

"Fair enough; it isn’t. The daughters each declared themselves independent from one another. Their husbands simply fought their wars."

"You blame the father for his children?"

"I blame Theodore for breaking the tradition of a single heir. His supposed respect for his children’s foolish wishes led to Akielos-Vere’s ruin.”

"Ah." Understanding bloomed, bitter and petty where it spread. He really hadn’t wanted to know. Laurent knew this. Laurent always knew this. "And that's why he's _my_ descendant."

Laurent sniffed, chin raised, and Damen felt a bit better. “ _I_ certainly didn’t have any.”

 

 

Most times, it went like this:

Rough, unspoken desperation and (frequently) furniture or breakable pottery as collateral damage. Most lives they hadn’t two gold coins to rub together, let alone a cuff made of the stuff --- but nails down backs and teeth at jawlines shone just as well. Most times, they acted as if they could climb into each other’s skin and make themselves whole. For a few precious seconds, they swore they managed it.

Every time, every year, every life, every death, every beginning of a new end. 

It wasn’t about the physicality, but it was about _grounding_. Skin flush, small spots of laughter and longer stretches of noises never _truly_ forgettable.

This, they waited for.

 

 

In one moment after _most times_ , the world tilted on its side.

“Jokaste isn’t you.” 

“That’s obvious.”

_So it should be no issue._

It didn’t sit well with either of them. It… chafed. _I love her in this life that hadn’t been_ , Damen thought, and gazed at a starlight-edged Laurent. Every life brought nuances: in this one, the golden haired slave stood three paces away, hands out of sight behind his back.

“You want me to say I love you more?”

Laurent’s mouth twisted with derision, everything about him sharpened in the dark.

At this point, as at any point, it bore saying. Damen only wished he would remember that this, at least, wasn’t malleable. “Laurent.” 

Blue gazed at him with the sublime irritation of someone who knew what was about to be said, and needed to hear it.

Damen’s gaze gentled. His hand found his right wrist, thumb stroking along smooth, unadorned skin. _If there’s one thing I’ve learned_ \-- “I have and always will.”

 

 

All at once, the world came into focus: Laurent woke mid-gasp, mind sent reeling from too many sensations at once - damp air stuck in his throat and shallow water along rippling along his sides, his leg caught in fire even as he dimly registered no smoke and no bright light. As he returned further to the world of the living (-- _hah, the never-ending world of the living -_ ), he registered overwhelming soreness and especial tenderness along the back of his skull. Sitting up proved to be a bad idea. The shallow pool he laid in welcomed him back with a miniature tidal wave.

Water crept into his ears, and his leg _burned_ straight into charred agony.

He rolled half onto his side, his gasps echoed back to him in the small, dank space. 

A glance toward his leg proved to be as bad an idea as sitting upright: he registered bone’s white sheen, the deep maroon of exposed muscle, and the raw anger of skin split. He felt his stomach lurch, which was admittedly not something he’d felt for a fair amount of time. He looked up. 

A cloudy sky peered back, indifferent and framed by a well’s slime-slick walls.

He---

Thought of wading through rivers on horseback, his language not his own and of a higher pitch; then, of Damianos with Jokaste, and the mud under his nails for years before that; next, knowing precisely what color to bring out the life in a dusky autumn forest; finally, a farmstead left to his name, a village convinced he carried a disease of the mind and his uncle’s promise to take him to rest in the countryside, and he’d believed him, he had, he was no more than fourteen, the compulsion to court another farm’s hired help so strong he had to be mad, his distrust of his uncle unfounded but irrepairable, and now he was left to rot at the bottom of a deserted well.

_He was not above screaming._

Dusk fell and dawn rose. His voice grew hoarse, then raw, then croaking. Consciousness swam as black dots in his vision. Insects crawled across his skin, burrowed into stinking flesh and presumably found his prone body as quite the boon. He certainly had no strength to flick even the smallest off.

 _A frog at the bottom of a well,_ came with a bubbled laugh, ears clogged with stale water and eyes half-lidded, body wracked in equal parts shivering chill and sweating, full-bodied fever. The story didn’t fit - he knew what world was out there - but he would die without fully living this chapter. It wasn’t too big of a pity. He’d met the Damianos of this life: a youth who would grow strong and happy, if not the leader he was always meant to be. As for his uncle, a few bodies back, he’d put a knife through the man’s back in the dead of night. The lonely life of a shut-in wasn’t one worth mourning.

 

 

He woke where he didn’t think he would, with the added tenderness of something heavy and wooden dropped onto his chest. 

Breath weak, vision a blur of blue and grey, he hears - “Funny. It wasn’t empty last month. The drought is reaching farther than we thought.” - and breathes - “Wait. Something’s down there.” - and thinks - “It’s a person! We’ve got to get him out; fetch me rope from the wagon, Erasmus -” _idiot._

 

 

Later:

“He wasn’t with the Regent.” 

It’s relief, plain and simple.

The farmer’s hired help furrowed his brows. Thoughts played clearly across his face even as they ran naught but blanks. In this life, his uncle was no Regent, only the ambitious climber of a short ladder in a small world. Unrelated to any uncle, the thought struck the blond that he wanted to wrap his hands around Damen’s until flesh gave way to bone gave way to dust, and whatever cycle they were caught in swept them somewhere new. 

Puzzled, Damen asked, “Who?”

Laurent shifted his leg, felt the sanded-smooth groove where makeshift wood cupped his knee, and acquiesced this mention to a boy of whom once hadn’t been so lucky. “Nicaise.”

 

 

Freedom lined their bones and the world, the big, big world, fell at their fingertips. Of never-ending streets, they mastered, and they were indisputably the _best_ at what they did. If asked (none asked), they did what they wanted, when they wanted, with only older brothers to suggest _right_ from _wrong_ , and they loved it. No need for teachers, lessons or matrons; no need for children’s homes; it was the four of them against the city, and it couldn’t get better than that. Discovery made up every day.

Their brothers didn’t always agree, Laurent knew. Damen scoffed at him the singular time he brought up the increasingly dark glances and discontent _discussions_ their brothers shared when they thought they were asleep. Damen’s skull was thick as mud, Laurent thought, and his heart too soft, also like mud. He’d have to keep an eye on the elders for the both of them.

Not that there was anything to worry about with Auguste. _His_ brother kept a job at the warehouse and put bread on their table and occasionally bought sweets from the candy shop and whose winning but sympathetic smile kept the neighbors from asking too many questions. Kastor held a job too, Damen protested, shoulders back and chin up like the offended ruffian he was ( _ruffian_ was a word learned people used instead of ‘little bastard’ or ‘orphaned fuck,’ so Laurent used it, too). Actually, he said, _Kastor’s got a job, too!_ , but that was because Damen was at the end of the day a ruffian who skipped his grammar lessons to throw rocks in the street with the other ruffians. Sometimes girls showed up to watch the boys, which prompted Damen to pull even stupider stunts like diving into the mucky river that ran through the city and, by obvious consequence, catching the stomach flu and throwing up everything Auguste’s hard-earned money put down his throat.

(Mr. Paschal, the doctor Auguste sometimes took him to see when he worried about his frail bones, taught him how to tell a day-long spell from more serious illnesses. It was in the sound the lungs made: whether it was wet or just obnoxious.)

(In any case.)

Kastor held a job, but he didn’t always make it home by curfew, and when Auguste demanded to know where he’d been, he lied and said he had worked extra hours and slept at a friend’s place. Laurent knew he lied because Laurent’s skull wasn’t thick as mud like Damen’s, and also because Kastor kept a money box that didn’t grow despite his supposed late nights. In fact, it shrunk. Auguste must know, too, but he didn’t call Kastor on it. 

“Laurent?” That was Auguste, tromping in their tiny doorway with his mud-covered boots. Laurent immediately stopped gnawing on the end of his pencil and squinted suspiciously through the lantern’s flickering light. Auguste looked unusually-- well, more unusually- worn, his shoulders slumped and skin sallow. Something unpleasant lodged itself in Laurent’s throat and stole the precious time he had to make excuses and put his watery eyes to use in cutting off his brother’s admonishment. “Put the book away. You’ll strain your eyes reading this late.”

The next week would mark their fourth month of being in this apartment. They had one bed and two floor pallets and no fireplace, unlike the children’s home (the only draw-back to leaving there. the _only_ ).

Nose scrunched, Laurent nonetheless did as told. Books folded and put away, lantern extinguished, he crawled to bed by the street’s dim light, weaseling the blankets out from under Damen’s heavy arm to wrap around himself. Damen was already a full head taller than him and broader than a barnhouse - he didn’t need the extra heat.

He often woke up with the lunkhead’s heavy arm pulling him stupid-close. Some mornings he pretended to sleep longer to count out Damen’s breaths, but mostly he pretended to sleep longer to enjoy the extra-extra heat, and also to listen to his brother and Kastor (who Auguste said was also his brother, and Laurent tried for Auguste’s sake, but it was different, it was) discuss future plans. Anyone else and Laurent would say Kastor and Auguste _argued in heated whispers_ , but Auguste made it very clear he wasn’t to call their discussions anything but ‘discussions,’ and also that he shouldn’t be listening anyway, but how could he not listen, they didn’t have that much space in their new home.

Just as Laurent thought, Auguste knew about Kastor’s emptying money box. Auguste demanded Kastor pay his fair share (to Laurent’s approval, Auguste thought of Damen as his own; but to his disappointment, he thought Auguste was willfully ignoring that Kastor was different). He said the weather was getting colder and they would need new clothes. Kastor stayed silent and didn’t even try to argue, which was idiotic of him. Like Damen, Kastor’s skull was made of mud, but unlike Damen, his kindness evaporated as fast as rainwater. Knowing him, he probably thought being quiet was equal to being nice. 

But it wasn’t. Money worried Auguste, and he had to work more to keep up for them, and the longer he worked the worse he looked.

He almost told Damen about the discussion that ended in tense silence, but that morning Damen challenged him to a race down the block. Damen, of course, won, and then Damen teased him about how out of breath he was, and then Damen broke a ruffian’s nose when the ruffian joined in but wasn’t joking about Laurent’s twiggy fingers and boring inclinations toward books.

Govart cursed and wailed all the way home. Damen said no one liked him much, anyway, while he shook out his hand. 

Damen wasn’t always a ruffian or a lunkhead, though Laurent made sure to point out he could handle himself next time. Damen had grinned, said “I know,” and pulled him into a headlock to ruffle his hair.

When he thought of telling the smiling Damen about Auguste and Kastor’s _discussion_ , sludge clogged up his throat for the second time and kept the words locked in his chest.

The day came that Kastor didn’t come back. After their four month anniversary came and went and still no Kastor, Auguste - drawn and coughing with a worryingly wet sound, which Laurent _told him_ indicated a serious, go-see-Mr.-Paschal cough but Auguste just told him not to trust books so much, which was the most foolish thing he’d ever heard out of his brother’s mouth - slammed his fist on the table and took off to find him. He stuffed a pink-stained handkerchief into his pocket, laced his muddy boots quickly and clutched his hat tightly to his chest. He snapped at them to stay inside before he left.

That part wasn’t new. They weren’t technically supposed to have left the children’s home. To pass the time, they played cards and Laurent read while Damen threw a ball up and caught it and threw it again and caught it again.

Eventually, Damen’s loud friends called up for him to come out and play. Laurent blocked the door because Auguste _said._ Damen pushed him, hard, and wrenched the door open, his body drawn tight and restless, face pinched and mouth twisted into a scowl. Laurent surprised himself when he yelled after the boy, _if your brother wasn’t such a good-for-nothing, my brother wouldn’t be dying!_

Damen had turned thirteen within the last month; it made him grouchy and touchy and unwilling to be near Laurent at weird times that Laurent had to re-learn. It was frustrating, and surely another sign that Damen had been dropped on his head as a baby.

The look Damen gave him made Laurent feel like _his_ head was full of mud and that he was no better than the scummiest ruffian.

Then the look was gone, broken by red-faced anger, and Damen yelled, _Shut up! I hate you!_ , or something that meant the same thing as those words, which was like the cruel definition of a synonym, and then he left, and Laurent was alone for an entire day and night and another day and almost another night.

The door’s hinges had rusted over long before they moved in, but if you held the door up a certain way on entering it didn’t squeak too badly. Laurent pretended to be asleep on his pallet, _all_ of the blankets pulled up and around him. The door creaked open and shut. The floorboards groaned under bare feet. A person hesitated next to his pallet, but then hands pushed into his blankets and cold fingers brushed his back and he was supposed to be asleep but he had to jerk away from _that._ He curled tighter in his nest of blankets, kept his mouth shut like Kastor had.

At his side, Damen’s breath caught. Then he sat, hard, next to his bed, and said, soft as a mouse, “I’m sorry,” and, “Laurent. Come on, Laurent, look at me,” and, “I shouldn’t have yelled,” and he sounded awfully sorry but Laurent kept pretending to be asleep even though they both knew he was wide awake. Then Damen said, Laurent strained to hear it, “You shouldn’t have said that about my brother but I shouldn’t have yelled and I shouldn’t have left so long and I’m really sorry, would you look at me already?” 

Silence.

Laurent broke his silence. Damen said, “What? I can’t hear you.” Laurent said it louder. Damen, the idiot, said, “Laurent, the blankets are in the way.”

Laurent ripped the blankets down so Damen wouldn’t have another excuse and said, enunciating clearly, “Are you coming to sleep or not?”

Damen’s concerned frown switched to a tremulously happy smile that dislodged the lump in Laurent’s throat; then he finally wiggled in, skipped the part where they pretended to sleep on opposite ends and pulled the other boy stupid-close, the air around them warming rapidly.

In the morning, Laurent woke up to Damen’s nose in his hair and drool covering his shoulder. It was absolutely disgusting, and gave him a perfect excuse to roll them over and jab his bony elbows into the boy’s sides before digging his fingers under Damen’s ribs, which woke Damen up with a gasp, confused and groggy, and thus kept the advantage firmly in Laurent’s field. They made a terrible ruckus until their downstairs neighbor rapped on their door and then offered to make them breakfast if they would stop making so much noise and it was the best, the very best.

It stopped being the best when Mr. Paschal’s nurse visited to tell them Auguste had been found collapsed in an alleyway and wasn’t expected to live much longer. She tried to pad it up by telling them he _might have to go away for a long time _, but Laurent knew, Laurent _knew_ , and then she offered to take them somewhere else to wait because two little boys couldn’t stay in such a large place, and Damen _knew_ because he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He’d known Kastor planned to leave and he’d known Auguste was dying and when Laurent stomped on the nurse’s foot to keep her from grabbing his shoulder, Damen snagged his hand and stretched his recently-added height to its limits, tore the two of them down the hall and out to the streets they had both long mastered, and didn’t stop until they were far, far away.__

__

__

__Once, it went like this:_ _

__Under the expansive stars of Akielos, horses and men alike silent in sleep, Laurent’s muted eyes tracked the shadowy figure of a woman on the run. He sat with his legs crossed and hands clasped, and he kept still and quiet as she dropped from her makeshift prison aboard a wagon and took to the forest. He sat and watched for a very long time._ _

__At his side, Damianos shifted and slept on._ _

__He imagined a world wherein Akielos and Vere had no qualms. A world where Auguste lived. A world where Damianos met him with his head held high. A world where the next day would not bring disaster. A world where his uncle--- well._ _

__He imagined quite a bit._ _

__Above, stars gleamed. They were no different in Akielos than they were in Vere. In fact, Laurent imagined, they would never differ._ _

He imagined the King of Akielos waking and asking in that particular voice of his, _Laurent? What is it?_

And lacking conviction, he thought he would answer, _What if this could be a beginning?_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! come visit me on [tumblr](http://dekinged.tumblr.com/) if you'd like.


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